Comment by zh3
5 days ago
AI following the Libet ([0]1983) paper about preconscious thought apparently preceding 'voluntary' acts (which really elevated the question of what 'freewill' means).
5 days ago
AI following the Libet ([0]1983) paper about preconscious thought apparently preceding 'voluntary' acts (which really elevated the question of what 'freewill' means).
The prima facie case for free will* is that it feels free. If you can predict the action before the feeling it removes that argument (unless you want to invoke time travel as an option)
*one of the predominant characterisations of free will, anyway. I'm a compatiblist, so I have no issue with caused feelings of decision making being in conflict with free will. I also have a variation of Tourette's, so I have a different perception of doing things wilfully when compared to most people. It's really hard to describe how sometimes you can't tell if something was tic or not.
I don't see why having some latency in the path of free will makes it no longer free. Before my arm moves up, there is a motor neuron that fires that is always correlated with my arm moving up; doesn't that just mean the free will occurs earlier in the process than the motor neuron firing?
The signal preceding the feeling is not an argument against free will. It is an argument against the feeling of free will being evidence for free will.
There are a lot of things I feel that end up not being "real," like embarrassment, a failure. and anxiety. Why should free will not be like any of those?
Like how capsaicin makes food feel hot even when it isn't?
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Hm, but maybe you can predict the feeling before you can predict the action. Checkmate atheists :)
(for the record I am also a compatibilist)
That it precedes voluntary acts tells us that most of what we do are not conscious. Which has been known for over a century, maybe millenia.
(opinion stolen from some Chomsky video)
Well, what does freewill mean to scientists?
There is no single definition for all scientists. However if you define free will as choices that are completely free of deterministic or even statistically deterministic causes that science could in principle predict, then most scientists would say: no, that kind of free will probably doesn’t exist.